


The Exiles

by tullyblue12



Series: What the Spirits Know [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26149945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tullyblue12/pseuds/tullyblue12
Summary: Zuko navigates life as a prisoner of the Southern Water Tribe. Katara isn't ready to leave him alone just yet.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: What the Spirits Know [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848556
Comments: 83
Kudos: 343





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone! Welcome to Part 3 of a series that took me by surprise! There will be a lot more relationship development in this story, and I hope you all enjoy the direction I take these characters. I have a few surprises up my sleeve! Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> Also, I did a lot of research on the real-life Inuit and Yupik cultures in order to write this story, since the majority of it takes place in the South Pole, and these cultures are the inspiration for the Water Tribes. Please feel free to ask me any questions about the way life in the South Pole is depicted in this story!

Her grandmother is surprised to see her. She takes her immediately in her arms, marveling at how much she’s grown, saying again and again how happy she is to see her. 

“Where’s Sokka?”

“Still in the North.”

“He didn’t return with you?”

“He married the Chief’s daughter, Gran-Gran. Their son is next in line to be Chief.”

“Sokka’s... _ married _ ?” she asks gravely. 

Katara laughs. “I know. I tried to talk the girl out of it too.” Eventually they’ll sit down, and Katara will admit the sad truth; the girl is no longer alive.

“And who’s this?” Gran-Gran’s eyes sweep to Zuko, addressing him for the first time. 

“A prisoner of the tribe, apprehended in the Siege of the North.”

“Then why isn’t he in the North?”

“He’s too high profile.”

“Who is he, Katara?”

“Zuko, son of Ozai.”

Her grandmother glares at her. She takes a minute to appraise their waterlogged prisoner. No doubt Gran-Gran notices that he hasn’t arrived in chains. “The tribe will decide what to do with him,” Gran-Gran says. 

That’s right. Sokka was appointed as leader when Dad left with the other men. When Sokka left to escort her to the North Pole, her grandmother told her it would leave all issues pertaining to the tribe up to majority vote. 

“We’ll discuss this immediately.”

“Wait,” protests Katara. “I want to vote too.”

“You’ve only just returned. Rest, my dear. The tribe will decide.” 

She leaves Zuko to the mercy of her people. She has no idea what’s in store for her. 

The tribe sentences him to death without sentencing him to death. They allot him a tiny strip of land at the end of the island, far away from the tribe. They give him no means to sustain himself. He has no weapons, no shelter, and if he’s caught using his firebending, Gran Gran says he’ll be drowned. 

“It’s how we settled these things in the past,” she explains. 

“You drowned them?” demands Katara, growing more and more sick with the world the older she gets. 

“It was the way.” 

“I didn’t bring him all the way down here so he could be killed.” 

“I don’t understand why you brought him down here at all.” 

“The North would have been attacked. They’re still recovering from the last one.” 

“And we aren’t?” ponders Gran Gran, gazing upon the scattered igloos that compose their tribe. There are no able bodied men, only women and children and elderly. There are no waterbenders, except for Katara. “You should have left him there. At least the North has prisons for him to rot in.”

Katara says nothing. 

On a particularly cold night, the coldest since Katara’s return, she clutches her quilt tightly around her and wonders about him. She wonders if his inner fire will help keep him alive, or if it will be harder for him to keep his strength at all, away from the rays of his sun. She doesn’t think he has anything comfortable to sleep on. She doesn’t think he even has a parka to wear. She knows he won’t be able to hunt without a weapon. There aren’t any raw materials to aid him down here. 

The next night, a fresh layer of snow falls. It melts a little in the sun and freezes into ice overnight. She clutches her quilt and vows to visit him in the morning. 

* * *

He thinks she’s a mirage at first. Staring at the edge of this wasteland is a different kind of madness, one much different than staring out at an endless sea. It makes sense that he’s going mad. He hasn’t had a bite of food in three days, not since he finished the last of the tiger seal pup he strangled when he still had his strength. He’d used a sharp piece of ice to cut through the animal’s thick skin and eat the meat raw. 

How becoming for the Fire Lord’s son, he mused sarcastically at first when the droplets of the animal’s blood clung to his face. But as he veers closer and closer to starvation, he realizes he doesn’t care much about how  _ becoming _ his behavior is. 

Still, of all his possible hallucinations, he wonders why he imagines Katara. 

“I brought you food,” she says. “And some water.” She taps a woven basket in her arms. It’s covered by a blanket, to shield its contents from the falling snow. She kneels beside him and holds it out in front of her. “It’s, um, not much but I figured you could use it.”

The meat in the Water Tribes is salted and dried into jerky when it isn’t prepared in a stew. She’s brought him a few pieces of jerky and a jug of water. It won’t last him long. 

He doesn’t know what kind of meat the jerky’s made from and he doesn’t care. He shreds the food between his teeth and finishes it all in a hurry despite himself. He knows he should savor every bite, but his body dictates his actions before his mind can keep up.

He washes it down with the water, sip after sip, and places the jug back in the basket when he finishes. 

Katara’s eyes watch him sorrowfully. He wonders if he still has the remnants of the seal pup he killed all over him, or if the snow’s helped wash that away. She takes the basket back. “I’ll bring you more,” she vows. 

She comes back the same time the next day, after he’s survived another freezing night. The basket’s back in her arms. He takes the dried meat, slower this time, and drinks the water. 

“You didn’t have to bring me water,” he says hotly. “I’ve been collecting snowmelt.”

“From firebending?” Her eyebrow quirks up suspiciously. 

“No, from high noon.” He points up at the sun. 

“Oh,” she realizes. “Keep the jug then.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you need something to keep the water in?”

When she takes the basket, she leaves the jug. He wonders if he’ll see her tomorrow. 

* * *

“You’ve only eaten half your food,” Gran-Gran mentions when Katara dismisses herself from their table.

“I’m not that hungry.”

“Perhaps it’s because you’re planning on taking the rest to our prisoner,” she remarks scathingly.

Katara bristles, blood boiling. “Did you have me followed?”

“It’s not difficult to figure out. Besides, a few of the women were quick to tell me they saw you sauntering off to him with a basket full of supplies.”

“‘Sauntering off!’”

“They’re words, not mine.”

“It doesn’t matter!”

“Well, why are you taking him things? The tribe exiled him. He’s not to speak to anyone in the tribe. That includes you.”

“You won’t even let him have some of the basic tools of survival!” Katara protests. “At least give him a chance.”

“So he can slay us while we sleep?”

“He won’t do that.”

“I see. You know him so well, don’t you?”

“Gran-Gran please-''

“Perhaps I wasn’t specific enough about the raids - how they rounded every waterbender up systematically and brutalized them! And now, just when you return home, our last waterbender, you bring the Fire Lord’s son with you!”

Katara takes her grandmother’s hand and rubs it soothingly between hers. “Nothing’s going to happen to me, Gran-Gran,” she says.

“Don’t visit that firebender anymore.”

She makes no promises. 

She starts leaving the supplies near his little camp. She doesn’t talk to him, doesn’t engage. She drops the food off on the outskirts of his territory and leaves wordlessly. After a few days of this, though, she starts to wonder about bringing him other things he may need. Food and drink are only a couple components of what he needs to survive out here. He’s still in his prison clothes, and she sees the way he huddles into himself to keep warm. She can only imagine how difficult the nights are for him. 

She decides to make Zuko a parka. She intends to make a simple one. She doesn’t intend to dye it or carve images into the bone buttons. She wants to make him a plainly functional garment. She hadn’t spent hours mending his bones in the North for the prince to die of the elements. 

Once she sets to work on the parka, she pours hours and hours into it, to her own dismay. Somehow, he always receives the best of her. He’s seen her greatest display of bending, reaped the best of her healing; now he’ll keep warm in her best stitching. 

She doesn’t dye the white fur of the polar leopard she uses. Instead, she thinks the parka is more beautiful for how purely white it is. She imagines it on him as she stitches the garment carefully. She imagines his black hair falling against the fur, contrasting so deeply with the color of his coat. 

She brings him some old clothes of her father’s in the meantime, but already they’re showing signs of wear, and she knows the fur of a koala otter is not nearly as warm as the fur of a polar leopard.

Even the animal is rare. They are often too clever to hunt. Sokka never even managed to take one down. Katara wonders briefly if the coat is too special for Zuko. Perhaps she should make the parka for her father when he returns, or save the fur to make several for the young children in the tribe. She should even make it for herself; she’s never had a parka so fine. 

In the end, she can’t imagine anyone else wearing it. Against her better judgment, she’s made it for Zuko. It’s his before she packs it into his basket. 

* * *

He sleeps better at night with the extra layer. It helps protect him from the chill as he waits by a hole in the ice where he’s seen the seals surface. As he sits there, waiting with his crudely fashioned ice dagger, he can’t help but stare at Katara’s handiwork. 

He wonders how long it took her to make it. Perhaps it was even left behind by one of the men in the tribe, but then he’d expect it to look a little worn. Instead, the fur is stark white, and it’s warmer than any blanket he’s laid beneath. He thinks there’s even an extra layer lining the inside. Even the buttons are perfectly rounded, with little designs carved into them. 

There are four buttons, he realizes. Four carvings. Each is a symbol for one of the elements. It’s the detail that belies his suspicions. Now he knows without a doubt she's made this coat for him. 

He should rip the buttons off. He should destroy the little message she’s sent him. 

But he can’t. He needs it out here. Besides, the coat she’s made him is beautiful. 

* * *

She offers to wash it for him a couple weeks later as she drops off her latest basket. Somewhere throughout her visits, she starts speaking to him again. Somewhere in all this, she ignores her grandmother's warning. She doesn't know him, not really, but she certainly knows him better than anybody else here does. “I already have plenty of washing to do. Mine and my grandmother’s. I could wash your parka.”

“That’s okay,” he says. 

She doesn’t know why she’s left feeling disappointed. 

All of these baskets mean nothing if he doesn’t have shelter. She can keep him alive with dried meats and furs, but he’ll never prosper without a permanent shelter. She’s seen him make his temporary camps; she even suspects some of them are poor attempts at replicating the igloos he’s seen in her tribe.

“I can teach you how to make one of our igloos,” she offers. 

She thinks he’ll refuse this one the way he refused her offer to wash his coat. She thinks he’ll turn her away. 

“Okay.”

It’s harrowing to her how well the two of them work together. They don’t speak to each other much as they build the igloo. She only gives him a few instructions at first, and he sets to work lightly melting the ice to the outer layer of the structure, only for her to refreeze the ice into something sturdier. They work together to pack layers of snow together on top of it. 

“Most people have to light a fire on the inside to set the ice. You’ve already set it,” she comments. 

“Are you going to tell or something? You know they said they’ll kill me if I firebend.” 

“No,” she answers, though her voice wavers uncertainly. “I was just...just making conversation, I guess.” 

“Oh.” 

“I’m glad you’ll finally be able to rest tonight. You won’t have to use all your energy on staying warm.”

He motions to the white fur parka he’s worn every day since she gave it to him. “This helps.” 

She thinks it’s the closest to a “thank you” she’ll ever receive. 

* * *

He waits all day for the seal to surface. He has nothing else to do out here but survive and wait for Katara to visit him. So he sits beside the hole where the seals surface from the icy waters, waiting to strike. Katara’s brought him an actual weapon now, a bone spear. When he finally catches one of the seals, he ponders giving Katara something in return. She’s done nothing but help him since they arrived, but the realization leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth. Sometimes he still thinks he hates her, if only for representing everything that’s been taken from him. 

But then again, doesn’t he represent everything that’s been taken from her? Haven’t their peoples warred for years? Yet, she still finds it in her to heal him, look after him, and bring him gifts. Perhaps she is a far better person than he is. 

There’s a difference between the gift he gives Katara and the gifts she’s given him. He doesn’t realize it until he’s holding his hand out to her with the hair sticks he’s made from the seal’s bones. He’s sharpened them to points at the ends. He’d dye them if he had anything for pigment. 

“Here.”

She eyes the twin accessories skeptically. “What are they?”

“Hair sticks.”

“Oh.”

Fire Nation women typically wear decorative hair sticks to fasten their hair, but he suddenly realizes he hasn’t seen a single woman in either pole wear one. “Do you wear them down here?”

“No,” she tells him. “Usually just the beads...but thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. You don’t wear them here anyways.”

“You could have made more weapons for yourself,” she points out. 

He shrugs. “You could have let me starve.”

With that, she hands him his latest basket. “No, I couldn’t have.”

“How do you keep bringing me things?” he finally asks. He’s been afraid all this time. Part of him worries if he makes her question herself, she’ll stop coming. He looks forward to her visits. He looks forward to her. 

She shrugs. “I just find stuff I think you could use and put it in the basket.” 

“But doesn’t anyone try to stop you? None of you are supposed to talk to me.” 

“I don’t do so well with people telling me what to do,” she admits. 

A chuckle bubbles from his chest. “I noticed.” 

“You can’t tell me you’re not the same. I happen to know firsthand you follow your own code.” She takes a deep breath, followed by another bite of jerky. They eat together most of the time now when she visits. "Maybe that's why I wanted you to stay alive so badly."

“Because we’re alike?”

“Yeah, I guess. And if we can be alike when we’re really so different...maybe…”

“Maybe there’s hope?” he prompts. 

She crosses her arms, however, mistaking his tone. “Don’t mock me.”

“I’m _not_ ,” he tells her truly. If he can forsake his superior, if she can heal him, if they can find some kind of peace, maybe there is hope for the rest of them. He’s seen so much of the world in his travels. He knows how badly they need hope. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I actually got married (woohoo), and now that things have settled down in my real life a little bit, I can get back to posting all my angst! Hope you enjoy! I’m so thankful for the wonderful feedback this story has received! I’ve got big plans for it.

He ends up sharpening the hair sticks into needles for her sewing. She accepts the gift and immediately incorporates them into her belongings. For some reason, she feels like she should hide them from her grandmother, even though they are two extra perfectly functional needles. 

Gran-Gran isn’t happy with how she’s been taking him supplies. She definitely doesn’t want Gran-Gran to know that on top of everything, he’s given her a gift. 

She overhears two women talking about her one day, the way Gran-Gran says they talk about her. 

“I don’t care if she is a master waterbender. She’s crossed the line,” one says. 

“She’s proved a point.”

“How so?”

“This is what happens when you don’t follow tradition. She should have married up north. She thought she was too good for that when she reached marrying age. She thought she was better than us. Now look at her, fucking a firebender.”

“The spirits wasted bending on her.”

That final comment brings tears to her eyes. She recognizes the voices too. They belong to women who smile at her whenever she passes, women who share her table some nights. She never wants to see them again. She never wants to hear them talk again. 

Gran Gran finds her, the tears still hot on her cheeks. When her grandmother lays a comforting hand on her shoulder, her sobs shake within her. 

“What happened, Katara?”

She shakes her head. She won’t talk about it, not after Gran-Gran warned her. The elder’s eyes soften, and she kisses her cheek softly. 

“Didn’t I tell you to tread lightly?” 

Oh, so she already knows.

“Yes.”

“Stop seeing him, and they’ll stop talking.” 

It doesn’t sound too bad a trade now that she’s heard the offensive words with her own ears. 

_ The spirits wasted bending on her.  _

Everything for nothing. Her mother’s death, the men of the tribe leaving, the journey North - none of it would happen if not for her bending. And what’s left of her fragmented tribe doesn’t think she even deserves it. 

“I’ll stop,” she promises. 

“Good girl.” 

  
She lays awake at night wondering if he’s warm enough. Of course he’s warm enough. He sleeps an igloo now, insulated by the thick layers of snow he’s fused to the outside of it. He’s probably too warm, now that his inner fire just fumes and fumes with no harsh winter winds to guide it away. 

She wonders if he’s hungry. He knows how to dry his meats out now. She’s supplied him with plenty of salts to make sure. He’s a patient fisherman. She’s seen him out there, waiting at the water’s edge from sunrise to sundown. Hunting’s scarce now, but he’s diligent in his efforts there too. He’s one of the most driven people she’s ever seen. 

That drive could have helped her father and the other warriors, she thinks bitterly as she remembers his bloodline. Zuko son of Ozai, son of Azulon, son of Sozin.

She lays awake at night wishing he had been born to the Water Tribes.

  
Weeks pass without seeing Zuko. She cooks and cleans. She goes out with a hunting party and comes up empty. She makes broth when some of the girls get sick. There are no babies to deliver, no children to train; the men have been gone for years. 

But despite her efforts, she still manages to overhear a couple women talking - completely different women. 

“I guess Katara called things off with her little fuck buddy.”

“Kanna had to talk to her.” 

“Kanna shouldn’t have had to step in. What would have possessed her in the first place?” 

The other woman smiles. “There aren’t exactly a lot of choices around here. She probably was used to lots of good looking men up north.”

“Still, give me the choice. Fuck a firebender or no one at all? Simple answer.”

Katara runs. She runs as far away from the voices as she can get. She runs to Zuko. 

“Didn’t think I’d see you again,” he grunts out. When she doesn’t respond, his eyes linger on her empty arms. “No basket.”

She looks down in surprise, as if realizing it for the first time. Her cheeks are flushed. “I must have forgotten it.” She turns away from him, poised to return to her village and retrieve it. 

“That’s okay,” he tells her. “I have enough food and drink.” 

“You do?” 

“Yeah.”

“So you didn’t go hungry?” 

“No.” 

“That’s good.” 

“Have you been out in the elements too long?” He asks, turning up the side of his mouth in a smirk. 

She scoffs. “No.” 

“Then why are you acting so weird? Don’t see you for a month and now you’re running over here, shaking. Come on. I’ll give you some tiger seal.” 

“I hate the Fire Nation,” she blurts out suddenly when he starts to turn away from her. He asked what’s wrong. He’s going to get an answer, and it’s not going to be the abbreviated version. 

“Yeah, I know you do.” 

“And you’re their crown prince.” 

“Not anymore,” he reminds her.

“But you were. You ruled over all of them. And if you hadn’t retaliated for what Zhao did to Tui, you would never even be here. You’d still be ruling over us. You’d still be spreading Ozai’s empire. You’d be conquering everyone.” 

“Are you done?” He interrupts hotly. 

“No, I’m still trying to get my thoughts together. I should  _ hate  _ you.” 

“Then why are you here?” He doesn’t say it unkindly, just curiously. 

_ Sometimes being here with you is more comfortable than being with the Tribe. Sometimes, I realize I’ve been gone so long that I don’t know how to come back _ .  _ Sometimes, I think you understand me better than anyone else here _ . “I missed you.” 

“So you don’t hate me?” 

“I should.” 

He nods in understanding. “I should hate you too.” 

“I still hate the Fire Nation,” she clarifies.

He scoffs. “I’m not too keen on the Water Tribes.” 

“I hate to say it, but I’m not keen on them either right now.” 

He looks at her questioningly, waiting for her to say more, but she’s too embarrassed to admit what they’re saying about them. All she says is, “they’re not too thrilled with me either.” 

He’s not stupid. “Because of me?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that why you stopped coming?” She nods. “So what changed?”

“Nothing. Nothing changed at all. It didn’t help that I stopped coming, so I figured I might as well. My reputation’s already in shreds.”

He breaks a piece of tiger seal jerky in half and hands her one. “It’s good to see you,” he tells her. 

* * *

The sun sets, and she still hasn’t left his side. Now that the air’s cooler, they retreat into the warmth of his igloo. She hasn’t been inside since they first made it together, since that day she saw him fire bending and she said she wouldn’t tell. 

“Do you ever plot your escape?” she asks him.

“Yes,” he says honestly. He’s never been able to lie very well. Azula always mocked him for it. She loved that he couldn’t lie. Mai hated it. He can hear her voice now.  _ How are you going to be Fire Lord if you can’t lie?  _

“You wouldn’t make it far,” Katara says. 

“I know that. Even if I could, I can’t go home, and...” he trails off.

“And…?” she prompts.

“Just thinking of the punishment for treason,” he finishes. 

“I assume it’s death.” 

“You assume right.”

“No allowances for princes?”

He smiles ruefully. “I already had one,” he admits, “and I was lucky to get that one.” 

“You did?” There’s surprise all over her face and pity deep within her blue eyes. 

He nods his head. “Military service is mandatory at sixteen. Crown princes are allowed to opt out in certain circumstances. My cousin never did, so I already decided that I never would. But I went in at thirteen, not sixteen. My uncle suggested it to my father and my father’s council when I spoke out of turn at a war meeting.”

“You spoke out of turn?”

“A general proposed sacrificing some of our soldiers, and it made me angry.” 

“It should have!” she insists. 

“My uncle told my father that my arrogance meant that I had no concept of war and should serve in the navy immediately. I did very well actually. I don’t think my father expected that.” 

“I could tell your men respected you.” 

The sentiment swells his chest with pride. He squashes it down. “They weren’t my men,” he says. “They were Zhao’s.”

“I’d think a prince would outrank everyone.”

“Not in the military. Zhao was an admiral. My rank was lower.”

“Maybe in technical terms, but I could tell they respected you more.” 

“Until I committed treason. Now no one respects me.” 

She opens her mouth to say something, probably to speak some halfhearted ‘I respect you’ nonsense he can’t bear to hear without everything getting so much more complicated, so he stops her. “It’s dark, Katara.” 

“I know.” 

“The others will get worried.” 

She shakes her head. “They know where I am.” 

When he wakes, it’s to her even breathing. He can tell the sun isn’t up yet; it won’t rise for a few more hours at least. He hasn’t gotten a full night’s sleep in so long. He supposes even Katara’s presence beside him can’t change that. When he checks her, she’s still sleeping soundly. He still can’t believe she opted to stay overnight with him. He can’t believe he wanted her to. 

* * *

  
When she wakes, it’s because she’s rolled into Zuko in her sleep. She must realize she’s so warm, and so comfortable, that this is the only explanation, and it startles her awake. She throws herself off him. 

“I didn't think I scared you that much.”

It’s the first time she ever hears him laugh. He must be somewhat relaxed after sleep. 

“You don’t scare me,” she says, even though he does. Her confusing feelings, her feelings about him, scare her so much. 

“I can hear your heart beating,” he says. 

The moon’s still high in the sky. “I can feel yours,” she reminds him, grasping for some lingering straws of control. 

“Are you going to paralyze me again?”

“No.”

“What was that bending? No other waterbender I’ve encountered could do that.”

“I really don’t know if anyone else can. Once I discovered I could do it, I never told anyone. I got scared. When I do it, I can feel the blood moving in your body. I can control you.” 

“I figured it was something like that.”

“I shouldn’t have used it on you to prove a point. It’s an awful thing.”

“It’s a skill that could save your life.”

“I’m not fighting anymore.” 

“You sound sad about it.”

“I’m not,” she insists, but even the words sound untrue to herself. It’s not that she misses it necessarily. She misses having a purpose, a purpose that involves her bending. Here her bending goes to waste. There’s no one to train with, no one to learn from. That’s why she went north, and when there was nothing left to learn, she came back. So what now?

“Do you miss the navy?”

“Parts of it.”

“What did you do?”

“Patrolled mostly. Every once in a while, we looked for signs of the Avatar.” 

“And? Did you ever find any?”

“No.” 

“So the Avatar Cycle is really over, isn’t it?” 

“Only the spirits know that. Go back to sleep, Katara.” 

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Where were you when Sozin’s Comet…”

His golden eyes open. Her mother’s killer had golden eyes. How can the same color look so different on this man? 

Katara and Sokka had already been in the North Pole when the comet came. They thought death was coming to them for sure, but it turned out the Fire Nation had its sights set on the Earth Kingdom the whole time. News came days later, of how whole villages burned to the ground. But she wants to hear it from him. She wants to know what he did. 

He takes a deep breath. “I was with the rest of the navy, on the western coast of the Earth Kingdom. My father stationed us there to make sure we caught any citizens who tried to escape by sea.”

“How many did you capture?” she asks, her throat tightening.

“No one,” he says. “They never stood a chance. War balloons razed the whole kingdom. Once the fires died down, the army came in and conquered every last stronghold except Ba Sing Se. Omashu, Gaoling, and all the villages in between. It was a slow night for the navy. We kept waiting, but we knew as soon as we saw how far the fires went. We couldn’t see a soul, but we could hear the screams.”

By the end of his account, Katara’s shivering. Even the steady raps of his voice wavers. “You see, I deserved to die a long time ago,” he tells her with overwhelming finality, as if the spirits already decided. 

She kisses him when the anguish becomes too much. Their world is a twisted hell, and they’re both stuck in it. They’ll both be casualties along with the century’s worth of men, women, and children who died without peace. 

He kisses her back. He runs his fingers through her hair as he props himself above her, tracing the seam of her lips with his tongue. She’ll let him taste anything he wants if he can kiss her like that. 

“Your people killed my mother,” she says when he pulls away long enough to remove his shirt. She thinks she should take hers off too. It’s so hot now, and she craves to feel his skin completely against hers. 

What would Sokka think? Or her father? Or Gran-Gran? He stood there and watched the Earth Kingdom burn. He is Zuko, son of Ozai, son of Azulon, son of Sozin, and he hates it as much as she does. She understands him now. He wanted to die when he attacked Zhao. He wanted his last act to mean something. She took that from him. 

“They killed my mother too.” 

When she pulls him back, to save each other from their sorrow and find solace in each other’s bodies, she realizes she doesn’t care what anyone else would think. They are the only two who can ever understand. 

* * *

  
The sun rises. Not a day has gone by where Zuko hasn’t gotten up at sunrise for his morning meditation, followed by his  bending exercises. Katara lays entwined with him beneath their blanket. It would be a crime to wake her, one of his many. 

  
So he doesn’t. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone! There have been so many awesome responses to this story, and a lot of you have many predictions for the direction this story is going to go. I do admit that my plan for this story is a little different than what most of you have in mind, so I'll be posting two chapters today to help you get a better idea of what I have planned. I hope you still like it! Thank you so much for reading!

She trudges through the snow the next morning, with a heavy pit in her stomach. A million times she practices what she’ll say to her grandmother, only to find there’s no need. Her grandmother’s sitting outside their hut, waiting for her.

“I told you not to see him. I told you what people thought. Now look at you.” 

“I’m sorry, Gran-Gran.” She isn’t sorry for the action, but she is for the pain it’s caused her grandmother. 

“You’re sorry?  _ That’s _ all you have to say? Do you know what’s ahead of you?”

“You mean my punishment?”

“Yes. Did you think you wouldn’t get one?” her grandmother demands. 

Katara bristles. She’d known of course that it was dangerous to keep visiting Zuko, but she thought that her acceptance of him would lead to reluctant tolerance by the rest of the tribe instead of the surging hate directed towards him. 

“What is it?”

“You’ll have to marry him.”

That isn’t so bad. Now that everyone knows she’s lain with him, no other man will take her—if the men ever come back. 

“And after your marriage ceremony, you’ll be exiled as well.”

“Gran-Gran!”  _ No. Please no _ . “But you need me here. I-I-I’m a healer, and when the new generation of waterbenders come, you need me to teach them!”

“We’ll send them north like we did for you,” her elder says with tears in her eyes. “You broke the law, my love. And without anyone to govern us, the tribe makes decisions together. Without the tribe, we are nothing. This is our ruling.”

“If Dad comes back, can he overturn it?” she wonders, desperately holding onto a hope that she can once again stand in her childhood room. 

“He can, but he may not want to.”

It sinks in then just how traitorously they view her now, and she begins to doubt whether her father will welcome her back when he learns the truth. 

* * *

Zuko plays with her necklaces that night. They’re the only two things she wears. 

“So your tribe wants us to get married?” he asks, tracing the blue choker. 

“Yes.”

“Do you want to?” 

He can feel her swallow hard. “I don’t want to anger the spirits.” 

He’s engaged in premarital activities with Mai before, without consequence—or so he thought. “Do _you_ think we angered them?” 

“I don’t know, but it’s reasonable to fear them...don’t you think?”

He’s seen the spirits work. He knows the power they wield. What he doesn’t know is why they don’t intervene and end this war. They’ve watched it for a century now. Perhaps that makes them even more dangerous, the fact that they can stand by and do nothing as they please. Yes, it is reasonable to fear them. 

“I’m just sorry this is because of me.” 

“Don’t be,” she tells him as his fingers trace the pendant at her throat. They trail lower to her locket, where she keeps a lock of her nephew’s hair safely inside—a gift from her brother. She betrays this brother as she lies beside him. “I made my choices too.” 

The beads are a custom of the Water Tribes. He’s always seen Katara wear two in her hair. “Fathers give them to their daughters on their first birthday, and mothers give them to their sons,” she explains. “I know you weren’t born in the tribe, and I’m about to be exiled anyways, but if you want to wear beads, I can put them in your hair.”

He’ll be dressed in true blue wedding furs for tonight’s event. He’ll be welcome to eat food with the tribe, even if they sneer at him the entire time. He’ll be a part of them for just a minute, even if they hate him. It’s okay. He hates them too, and they’ll hate him more if he wears the beads. 

“Okay,” he agrees. 

He’ll never pass for a man of the Water Tribes, but he never sees Katara smile at him more fondly than after she’s done braiding a section of his hair and tying it off with those two blue beads. 

In the same night, she shudders in his arms. She cries silent tears, knowing that she’s officially exiled. His own heart races, knowing they’re bonded together before the spirits eternally. 

For the first time in months, he wonders how Mai is. He spent his whole life thinking he’d marry her one day, thinking he loved her. He knows she cared for him, and he hopes she is okay. He hopes that one person in all of this can end up okay; he isn't, and neither is his waterbending wife. 

Exile isn’t for the weak of heart. 

Zuko adjusts to living with Katara easily. He’s grateful to have someone with him. He can only hope she doesn’t regret her choices. They hunt together. They eat each meal together. They wash together. They spend each night together, huddled beneath blankets, seeking each other out in their sleep. Sometimes they tell each other stories at night, memories of the ones they loved. It’s been years since he’s spoken of his mother, but she draws it out of him, every last detail he can remember. She does the same for her mother, mentioning the color of her eyes and the way she styled her hair, just to keep the image of her fresh in her mind. They wake together, and do everything again, remembering that they would not have to be alone if things were different.

But they won’t be alone much longer, Katara tells him. 

“You’re going to be a father.”

* * *

She’s stunned him. She’s already processed the news. She’s had time to suspect, and investigate, and finally confirm that their child is growing inside her. But Zuko is having a little more difficulty coming to terms with the news. 

“I’m going to be a father?”

“Yes, Zuko.”

He panics immediately. “No one can ever know. If my father ever finds out…”

“How could he know?”

He falls to his knees, raking his hands through his hair. She’s never seen him so mad with worry. She’s never seen him give his own safety this kind of thought. “My father is not a good man.”

“I know that. He’s not going to get our baby. No one will,” she promises. 

The Fire Nation came for Katara once, on the fateful day her life changed forever. Her mother didn’t let them take her, and history would repeat itself if the Fire Nation ever came for her baby. 

She’s collecting snowmelt one morning, a few months away from her delivery date, when she sees the blue sails of her father’s ships. She doesn’t spare a thought for her punishment; her father’s home. She rushes to the village. She needs to see her father before he hears everyone whisper the wicked things they say about her. She needs to tell him herself. 

She runs to him, but she’s too late. Gran-Gran’s told him everything. 

He has grim news for her, too. 

“Ba Sing Se’s fallen. That’s why we’re back. There’s no chance now. The Fire Nation just won the war.” 

“How?” she exclaims. How could Ba Sing Se withstand Sozin’s Comet only to fall now? 

“Your _husband’s_ sister,” her grandmother spits at her, as if Zuko took the city himself. “Or should I say the Queen of Ba Sing Se?” 

Her baby kicks. Katara rubs soothing circles around her belly. She can see how much the motion hurts her father. 

“If it’s a girl, I want to name her Kya,” she tells them, hoping it will soothe the wound.

Instead of a balm, it is salt. Gran-Gran scoffs. “You’d disgrace your mother’s memory like that?”

“Excuse me?” Katara returns.

“You would give your mother’s name to Ozai’s grandchild?” 

Katara’s father is silent through it all. He won’t even meet her eyes. That’s when she knows that no matter how much he still loves her, or the little girl she once was, he will not love this baby. Her baby will never be anything more than Zuko’s baby to them. 

The realization brings tears to her eyes. 

“Get out of my sight,” Gran-Gran says, “before we hand that husband of yours over to Queen Azula.” 

She does. 

* * *

“My father can overturn the exile.”

“I know.”

“And it could apply to you too, since we’re married.” 

For a minute, he imagines them living among the tribe that cast them out. How can one still crave society after all its wrongdoings? Is it truly the worst hell to be alone? 

“But he won’t, will he?” 

“He might change his mind,” she answers shakily. 

He was never good at lying, so he offers her no false hope. He already knows Chief Hakoda will never welcome Ozai’s son. Instead, he settles to sleep beside her, with an arm wrapped around their unborn child. 

When the time comes for Katara to deliver their child, he’s never felt the terms of their exile more keenly. She lays on the floor, grunting in pain, sweating despite the chill, clasping his hand, and there’s nothing he can do to help her. 

The tribe knows her delivery date is approaching. Throughout her entire pregnancy, they’ve never sent a midwife. 

“I can go to the tribe,” he offers. “I can tell your grandmother to send someone, maybe even herself.”

“Don’t leave me,” she begs between exhales. “Please. No one will come. Don’t leave me.”

“Okay,” he promises, but she must see through him. She must sense his trepidation. 

“It’ll be okay. It’ll be just like we talked about. I know how to deliver a baby. I’ll walk you through it.”

He laughs. “I’m supposed to be assuring you.”

“It’s still a while before the baby comes,” she says, groaning when another one of her contractions hits; he can tell her pains are getting stronger.

Unsure of what to do, he kisses her hand, not that it will soothe any of her pain. He already knows this will be the longest night of his life. 

* * *

Typically, the woman leans against her husband when the birthing pains begin. The husband massages her belly, as the woman is prayed for by her female relatives. But it’s just Zuko with her. He’s almost as sweaty as she is, feeling her stomach for the baby. He has fresh linens beside him and a knife he’s been sharpening for days now. 

“Remember to tie a knot when you cut the cord,” she tells him again. She wonders if he’s sick of hearing the same instructions over and over again. Still, it gives her comfort to offer them. 

“I know.”

“And-"

“Clean the baby and keep it warm. I know, Katara. Are you ready to start pushing?”

This is the part where it’s most important to have the husband’s support. She should be leaning against him, while he holds her hands and whispers prayers in her ear; he needs to be with their baby now. He needs to deliver their child safely into the world. 

“Yeah.”

She screams through it all. She screams and grits her teeth and wonders how anyone ever survives this. She has to get this baby out of her. She has to end this pain. 

Then she hears her baby cry.

“I’ve got her,” Zuko says.  _ Her _ . They have a daughter. She can barely crane her neck to see Zuko clean her. She’s overwhelmed with relief. Their baby’s here. Their baby’s healthy. She wants to see her, to hold her, to call her name and kiss her cheeks; but she’s so tired. She closes her eyes against her will. 

* * *

Katara gets sick after Kya’s birth. She lays in their bed, impossibly pale. Zuko calls for her a thousand times. It will be his worst fear come true if he’s left alone with their newborn daughter. He wonders if anyone from the village would even offer to nurse her, or would they condemn his daughter to death, for no reason other than being born of him. 

He can’t bear the thought, but it’s all he can think as Katara lays motionlessly and Kya cries in his arms. 

He keeps her warm. He rocks her. He even sings the lullabies his mother sang to him. When night comes and Katara still doesn’t open her eyes, he breaks down and prays. He begs the spirits to let her stay with them. She’s too important to take. 

He lies beside her that night, as he has every night since her exile. He lulls Kya to sleep on his chest. It will be a short nap for their baby; she’s exhausted from her crying but no less hungry. 

When he wakes, it’s to Katara's gentle fingers caressing his temple. “Does she need to eat?” she asks. Her voice is weak.

“Yes.”

He helps her sit up in their bed and places Kya gently in her arms. It takes a minute for the two of them to arrange themselves, but as soon as Kya starts nursing he exhales in relief. 

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks. “In her delivery, did I do something to make you sick?”

“No, Zuko,” she says smiling. “Look at her. She’s perfect. I promise, you did everything right.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's ready for the final chapter of this part of the story? Only one more part of the series to go! I promise that one will have all the action and answer any of your lingering questions! Thank you so much for reading!

Sometimes while Kya sleeps, Zuko sits up and watches her. When he does, his thoughts almost always venture to his father, and he wonders what went wrong. He’s never felt anything more strongly than the love he feels for his daughter. Their father never loved them, not even  _ Queen _ Azula, no matter how perfect she was. He only took pride in her. Zuko knows now that pride is different from love. 

He loves his baby, who sleeps nestled between her parents. One of her fists rests on Katara’s chest. Her little dark curls are a perfect match to her mother’s. So are her beautiful, blue eyes. 

Kya’s lucky. It doesn’t look like she’s inherited anything from her father. She hasn’t inherited anything from Azula. She hasn’t inherited anything from Ozai. 

Sometimes while Kya sleeps, Zuko wishes he could see a glimpse of his mother in her. She hasn’t inherited anything from Princess Ursa either.

Kya grows up alone. It breaks Zuko and Katara’s heart. She is their joy, and yet the life they provide her offers little pleasure. She laughs at the clouds moving. She learns to crawl among arctic seals, and watches her mother weave a polar bear’s pelt into the carpet they sit on every night. She sits in her parents’ laps most days and traces the lines of their hands. 

“She’s fascinated by them,” Zuko notices. 

“It’s because we bend with them. She’s trying to learn how to bend.” 

“Is that it, little one? You want to learn how to bend?” 

Zuko makes a small flame, in a hand stretched safely away from Kya. She claps happily. He realizes in that moment that he’s truly happy to be alive. There was a reason he didn’t damn himself to a dishonorable death when there was no hope left in the world.

* * *

Every night, when they lay down for bed, Katara tells Kya, "I love you more than all the stars in the sky, and the moon that lights their way." 

Kya babbles back. 

"She's trying to say she loves you too," Zuko says. 

Katara kisses her. "More than all the stars in the sky, and the moon that lights their way," she whispers again. Then, with shaky confidence, she locks eyes with Zuko. They've always expressed their devotion through action. They've never been vocal with each other. People like them don't need to speak such things. People like them, made from the same star, or so the teaching goes, understand each other. She looks at him and hopes he understands that she loves him more than the sun that flows in his veins, and she doesn't regret her choice, though she wishes the consequence was less cruel. 

He smiles back at her. She thinks he loves her too. 

* * *

Katara’s grandmother comes to visit when Kya is almost a year old. She barges into the igloo as if it’s hers, startling them to defense. “I’d like to talk to Katara,” she says. 

“Gran-Gran, what are you doing here?” 

“We’re overdue for a talk.”

“Surely Zuko can come too.”

“No, Katara. Leave the girl and step outside for a minute.”

“ _ Kya _ , your great-granddaughter,” Katara corrects, handing her over to Zuko. Kya is in awe of Kanna. She’s never seen anyone else aside from her parents. Her whole life she’s been alone. Kya cries when Katara walks out of the igloo. 

“Mommy’s coming back,” he whispers. “Shh, shh, Daddy’s here. Shh, Kya. Daddy’s trying to eavesdrop.” His pleading doesn’t work. He’ll have to wait until Katara steps back inside. 

“What did she want?” Zuko asks when she returns. 

“Let’s sit down, Zuko.”

They sit across from each other. It’s a new ritual of theirs, to sit far apart from each other on their carpet, so Kya can practice moving between them. She crawls expertly now. Every once in a while, they see her stand up, but she still hasn’t taken a step. 

“It’s more of what the tribe wants,” his wife replies cryptically. “They want to test Kya.” 

“For what?” 

“The Avatar Cycle.” 

“Why?”

“Her first birthday’s coming up.”

“They’re wasting their time.”

“Every child born in the Water Tribes has to be tested,” Katara says through gritted teeth. 

“Oh, so she’s a part of the Water Tribe now?” he demands bitterly. Kya’s unperturbed by her parents’ tense conversation. She continues crawling from one exiled parent to the other. 

“You don’t have to go. But  _ she _ does, and I’m going with her.”

“Oh, I’m going. If they want to test her, they’ll have to look me in the eye and remember who her father is.”

Katara rolls her eyes at him but accepts that the _two_ of them will take their daughter to the elders on the morning of Kya’s first birthday. "Be civil," she counsels.

He snorts. "I'm always civil." 

_ You'll have to forgive my nephew. He's a little worse for wear. _ Zuko sighs. It's been too long since he's heard his uncle's voice.

He wakes up first that morning, as he usually does. He gently wakes Kya, who sleeps safely nestled between his body and Katara’s. 

“Come here, my love. I have something for you.” He pulls her into his lap and reveals the beads Katara gave him for their wedding. It is her first birthday, after all, and it is the day fathers thread beads into their daughters’ hair. When he finishes, she smiles at him. He kisses her forehead. “There. All done. Now let’s get Mommy up.”

Zuko never wanted his daughter to be an exile. He wanted her to belong somewhere. This morning she belongs in the Southern Water Tribe. 

  
  


Katara doesn’t stop fiddling with her parka all the way to the elders’ tent. “It used to be a proper temple,” Katara told him once. “Before the Fire Nation came.”

Now it’s a tent, but the offerings still burn, and the people fear the spirits all the same. 

Here, Kya will be tested. He doesn’t know why his heart’s beating so fast. Perhaps it’s because he hasn’t had contact with other people in over a year. He knows in his heart the Avatar Cycle is broken. Something happened when the airbenders were wiped out, something irreparable. Mercifully, the relics survived, the only pieces left of a history thousands of years old. It’s surreal to see them in person. The elders, one of which is Kanna, are hesitant to even let Zuko in the tent, where the relics are laid out.

“This is how the airbenders discovered their Avatars. When their temples were desecrated, the ancient relics were divided secretly among the water tribes to identify the next incarnation. One set was smuggled south; the other to the north.” 

But the airbenders were wiped out a century ago, and so far a new Avatar hasn’t been produced. Now that Ba Sing Se has fallen, the people cling to desperate hopes. 

“Go ahead, Zuko. Set her down. Let her pick.” Katara tells him. 

The relics are mixed in with other childrens’ toys, even some eye-catching clothing and porcelain Fire Nation dolls. 

Kanna calls for their daughter, “Come here, Kya. You can pick anything you want.”

“Go on, my love,” he whispers. 

Kya doesn’t reach for anything immediately. She looks at the toys first. Then she stands, as she’s been practicing, and takes her very first steps.

Katara gasps. “She’s walking!” 

Zuko smiles proudly. “Yes, she is.” 

She’s walking directly to the relics. They toys would seem insignificant to Zuko if he didn’t know whose they were. 

The stuffed hog monkey, the clay turtle duck, the whirligig, and the drum— _the Avatar relics_ —find a home in Kya’s arms. 

Selga, another elder, nearly faints. “No hesitation.”

“She picked all four,” Kanna echoes. “No child’s ever picked more than one.” She turns to them, and they all watch Kya play with her toys. “She picked all four!”

Katara grabs his arm. Her nails would dig painfully into his skin if not for the white parka she gave him so long ago. 

A third elder, Hanala, dips her thumb in oil and marks their daughter’s forehead. 

“Behold, Avatar Kya!”

Zuko's head rings. _Avatar Kya_. 

All of them—Kya included, when she is separated from the relics—leave with tears in their eyes. 

Overnight, the tribe’s opinion of him changes. The tribe’s opinion of Katara changes. The tribe’s opinion of their daughter changes. He is no longer the exiled prisoner of the Southern Water Tribe. There’s respect in their eyes when he passes, though there’s also envy. _Why_ _ have the spirits blessed him? _ That’s how they look at him. But the spirits  _ have _ blessed him, though he has no idea why either. 

His daughter is the Avatar. The news passes through the tribe like wildfire. He wishes he could erase it from their minds. He wishes he had never agreed to the spirits-damned ceremony. 

“They never even sent a midwife.”

“I know.”

“Now they want us back in the tribe. They want to build us a house beside your father’s.” 

Zuko is a proud man. He wonders if he’d return to his family if they decided they wanted him back. He wouldn't, not that it matters. His family will never take him back. He doesn't want them too. Katara’s silent through all this. She lets him do the talking. She lets him complain about the injustice of it all, but still he sees the faint longing in her eyes. She craves this new acceptance from the tribe. 

“You want to move back,” he realizes. 

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I just—I don’t want them to take how they feel about us out on Kya. I want them to love her.”

“They don’t deserve her.”

“I know that, but she’s the Avatar. We can’t just pretend she’s not.”

“She’s a baby.”

Tears fall from Katara’s eyes. This whole time he thought she wasn’t on his side, but she is. They’ve been united since the night she stayed. Kya unites them further. They will die before anything happens to her, and now they know she’s been born into the most dangerous incarnation imaginable. 

“Now I know how my mom felt,” she sobs. 

“I won’t let anything happen to her,” he promises. He whispers the words into the hollow of her throat, his own voice quivering with anguish. Somehow, they’ve lost their daughter a year after they received her. 


End file.
